Hundreds of game developers, publicists, plus examiners flooded the English resort city of Brighton in July for the yearly Develop convention. In addition to controversial reports and discussions on how to earn currency in the rapidly fragmented gaming market, the sessions on game development future generated particular interest due to the game development studio – Whimsy. Not in times of game design itself (this is the main topic of conferences such as Game Developers Conference and SXSW), but in times of business models and current trends.

Parents as play mentors and advocates

Speaking concerning the rules of contemporary teens, Research Director at Nickelodeon Alison Yorke spoke on how promptly we may observe the 1 period of fathers who started up operating computer games and now pass on their hobby and play preferences to kids. In a modern study of British parents, the way discovered that 75 percent of parents play video games with their kids. At the real time, children under 11 years old receive most of the recommendations regarding games.

Families now spend longer period in the common living room, and the quantity of children with TVs in bedrooms is decreasing. Every family member may be on a different device, however, collectively they are nearer to each other than ever before. This trend could point to a sharp increase in the number of projects aimed at the joint entertainment of fathers and kids – something like the Pixar effect in the film business. Certanly , Nintendo has been in that niche for years, just like Lego, although the market for projects aimed at game collaboration between children and parents could grow significantly as higher and longer representatives of Generation Y mature fathers.

360 points of freedom

Thanks to research by Nickelodeon, 34% of English children beneath the age of 12 own a tablet, plus most of them receive smartphones when they enter high class. As a consequence, this “touch-generation” smoothly and imperceptibly combines the digital environment with the real one. They expect a consistent 360-degree experience anywhere every stage – whether real or virtual – replies something to background.

We are already seeing how Moshi Monsters, Bin Weevils and Angry Birds smoothly entered the market for material things, games, and commodity, we can also note the increasing popularity of the toys-to-life style, which combines virtual and real game objects:

– Skylanders;
– Disney Infinity;
– Amiibo.

We may assume the emergence of including more of certain “360-degree” concessions, and, therefore, children will increasingly get used to combining virtual and real entertainment.

Indie games become tangible

Children play Tap Happy Sabotage physics game by Alistair Atchinson at the GameCity Festival in Nottingham. Indie 2d game artists and developers are frequently searching with RFID microprocessors and NFC methods and various game controllers.

It’s likely that franchises or other game-related products won’t be the sole domain of publicists similar to Activision and Disney. 3D print is growing extra affordable, providing small batches of game characters to be produced. We are previously seeing the rise game development industry like Sandboxr that make it simpler to build and share images for game developers based on designs. Amazon is also worth noting here, which has started a 3D print service for its clients.

At the identical moment, NFC technologies are additionally growing more available, expanding the ability of developers to release toys-to-life projects. For instance, Taiwan-based workshop Monkey Potion has produced a fancy tabletop tactics game Project Legion, where NFC chips are embedded in all elements, allowing the game to communicate with a partner app that tracks every movement of objects and displays it on the screen.